Mit Engineers A Fundamental Change

June 28, 1987|By Michael Coakley, Chicago Tribune.

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — As part of a sweeping re-examination of its educational mission, the world-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology will begin requiring its undergraduates to pursue more systematic study of the humanities, the arts and the social sciences.

The purpose of this change and others likely to follow is ambitious and revolutionary: to alter the basic training of the next generation of engineers and scientists so as to better prepare them for an increasingly complex and interdependent world.

Because of the prestige of the 125-year-old institute, the curriculum changes approved by a faculty vote late last month are expected to have at least some influence on the direction of teaching at other leading engineering schools.

MIT`s president, Paul E. Gray, often has suggested in recent years that the school`s academic program did not adequately emphasize the social contexts of science and technology and that it might ``not be sufficient in character and breadth.``

``MIT`s graduates,`` he wrote in a report to the trustees last year,

``should have the ability to understand and respect the economic, political, social and environmental issues associated with technical developments and the applications of science.``

The alterations in course structure that grew from Gray`s concerns are aimed at preparing more graduates for policy-making roles in business, politics and other professions. The new courses might enable the student to appreciate better the public`s concern over nuclear power, for instance, or to understand better the growing impact of global forces on the American economy. ``We`re looking at the engineer of the future, and we`ve become firmly convinced that there should be less stress on a narrow technical education and more attention paid to contextual issues, like the role of economics and government in the engineering profession,`` said Jack Kerrebrock, associate dean of the School of Engineering.

``We like to think that our engineers are making their way into decision- making posts, but in order to do that, they have to be aware of history and of politics. Engineers should be considering elective office, and not many of them are now.``

The curriculum revisions, which will begin with this fall`s freshman class, will require students to take at least three broad liberal arts courses that emphasize such fundamental themes as literary traditions and the origins of political institutions. And, for the first time, students majoring in engineering and science will be allowed to choose a nontechnical field, such as philosophy or history, as their ``minor.``

The changes are unpopular among the institute`s 4,500 undergraduates, two-thirds of whom are enrolled in the School of Engineering and Computer Science. Students opposing the new curriculum have argued that it will seriously limit their freedom of choice in course selection.

About 1,500 undergraduates signed a petition in the spring urging that the changes not be implemented. Nonetheless, the faculty vote approving the move was nearly unanimous.

MIT students currently are compelled to take eight courses in the humanities, arts and social sciences. Three of these courses must be chosen from 160 designated ``distribution courses,`` many of them highly specialized. The result, according to faculty members who have pushed for curriculum revision, is that many engineering and science students try to find narrowly focused courses that will not be very taxing.

``MIT`s students have had a tendency to regard the humanities and social sciences as something that was residual,`` said Margaret MacVicar, the institute`s dean for undergraduate education. ``We`re trying to set a new tone, to say that the nontechnical courses are important.``

``What has been set in motion here represents the first baby steps,``

added MacVicar, who is heading the main committee overseeing the review process. ``The whole process could take a decade.``

Among future initiatives being explored are new degrees for dual competency in liberal and technical studies, a credential that could greatly enhance employment and advancement prospects for engineers and scientists.

Many MIT faculty members who had pushed for the curriculum changes have candidly admitted that such changes are needed to enhance the prestige of the engineering profession.

For all the new interest in broadening the institute`s educational experience, there remains a fervent dedication to the pre-eminence of its technical core.

``There will always be a place at MIT for what we call the `nerd,` for the student who desires very intense training in a narrow, technical field,`` said Kerrebrock.

Simultaneously expanding a student`s exposure to humanities and the social sciences while not diluting his or her technical training has raised the question of whether the traditional four-year engineering degree still is adequate or whether it should be stretched to a five-year program.

The issue is generating considerable controversy on the institute`s austere stone campus along the Charles River.

The engineering faculty tends to argue that four years of formal education is sufficient.

However, many professors in the humanities and social science departments argue, at least privately, that the four-year program eventually must be expanded.

``The question is explosive and it`s divisive,`` said one concerned professor.